Eloquence and Inure
by Parapluie Lire
Summary: Lily Evens was a complex witch. She is you and you are her. You are ambitious, she is cunning, and your both blind in the worst way possible.


**A/N: The Marauder's era is not my time period of choice and to be honest, I was never one for Snape or really such a big fan of Lily or James. This one-shot(while written for many challenges etc.) is also my foot in the door of the Marauder's era. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.**

**After reading MacBeth, I just can't let go of the candle analogy. It's addicting.**

(on the topic of the title/ eloquence is beauty and persuasion in speech and inure is to be jaded.)

* * *

You didn't start out perfect. You were always goody-goody Lily, never included in the neighborhood children's games. Though you didn't mind, you had Prtunia and she was all you needed. She would come up with the funniest stories and you'd laugh till you cried. She was your best friend.

You were normal. Not pretty and with out the artistic ability of your sister. She could draw anything; you could barely draw a smily face.

She didn't gloat or laugh at your attempts, but she helped you. That didn't stop the fact that you were, through it all, mediocre.

You were a good student, bringing in extra credit and projects without being asked but that didn't amount to much in your book. Yes, your parents were delighted at your academic prowess, and you did get a thrill from their attention. Though, the title of good-student didn't satisfy you.

Then he came along. He told you that you were _special_. That you were something that artistic Tuney was not.

You liked that attention nearly as much as you loved your sister. He inflated you- he was your friend and you were his.

Gallivanting in the park pretending to wield wands, you were just waiting for the day when the twig would become polished wood.

As far fetched as it was, you never really thought he was pulling one over on you. Maybe it was his earnest face or Tuney's distaste and her insistence. She told you that he was telling lies. You didn't, or at the time, didn't want to, believe her.

Eventually, when you were around ten, she just stopped speaking to you.

You wondered why. She just stopped looking at you, one day. Happily pretending you didn't exist, she played with her erasers and pens that were obviously so much more important than you.

Cooping herself up in her room, she just drew, as you, young and ready to take on the world, danced and played with your brilliant new friend.

You stopped caring, you cut her out as she did you.

Perhaps, if you had at least pretended to take her opinion into account, things would have been different. That was only a perhaps, but in the world you were entering, there was no room for 'perhaps'.

Later, she wouldn't be able to stand being in the same room as you. Leaving as soon as you entered, picking up her pens and pencils with her sketchbook under her arm, she always walked away.

Then the boy you had played in fields with twigs with, turned out to be right. Not that you had ever doubted him.

A letter arrived for you at exactly one fifteen on your birthday. Petunia had sat, slack-jawed, as the beautiful bird dislodged it's burden from its beak, took a sip on water from Petunia's cup, and flew away leaving an envelope behind.

To be honest, you could have been a little gentler as you shoved your thin-as-a-rail sister out of the way. You needed the letter like she needed oxygen. You needed to be special.

So you missed the tear in Petunia's eyes. You turned a blind eye to her muffled sobs as she pulled herself from the room. She was always a crybaby. She would just go back to her pencils like she always did.

You were different, now you would leave her behind. What were some art medallions and school-wide announced awards when you had magic?

You weren't going to be just 'Petunia's sister' or the un-artistic one. You were not going to be dubbed as unimaginative or ungifted, because you _were_ gifted.

Smart and borderline brilliant in this new world, you weren't mediocre, you were special. Now, the only difference was that everyone else could see your luminosity too. You were, you had already worked it all out. From what Severus had told you, _all_ witches and wizards got their letter at eleven.

Petunia's would never come.

She wasn't special, and even you, thinking back, though that with more malice than needed. She didn't cry when you left for Hogwarts, instead she called you a freak.

You called her horrible names too, you couldn't pretend like you were completely innocent. Though when _her_ accusing words drew tears, your parents had pounced on her. They wanted to know why their eldest daughter could be so cruel to their 'different' daughter. The reprimands would go on and she gaped, and you smiled. Tuney would get what she deserved.

It never struck you then how you parents never really ridiculed you. Thought you were above them- you had an ability that they wouldn't even get close to being able to fathom.

They ridiculed Petunia but that was because she always made mistakes and that they could. She, after all, wasn't magical. She wasn't special. You were.

* * *

James Potter was a prick. Severus, your best friend, was getting bullied. He had introduced you to the world where you were unique and even considered the best of class, and you couldn't even protect him properly.

At first it was flattering, the way that James sought you out, but it soon turned sour. You didn't like him anymore.

People tell you that you must fancy Severus but you don't. You do love him dearly, though not romantically. However he feels is up to him.

Somewhere in the back of your head you realize he likes you more than you would have liked but you don't try to dissuade him. He hasn't made a move so you ignore it and move on.

You laugh with your friends and live your life. Meeting with Severus in the library, that's your time with him. You spend hours learning new charms but one day, in a few years, his presence will become less frequent and you will become used to not having him around.

You didn't approve of his friends; they were mean and evil but he didn't approve of yours either. He called them flighty and their jokes were lame and that they were just simpletons. In response, you were undeniably loyal like a Gryffindor should. That attribute had been brushed the wrong way during that talk in the library with Sev.

So you whispered harshly to him like you did Petunia. You disregarded his thoughts; they were foolish and it was he who was going down the dark path. Severus didn't see it yet but, you just hoped he turned back before it was too late.

He was your best friend no matter what.

* * *

The summer of sixth year comes along. Next year at Hogwarts you'll be in seventh, only a year from witch-adult hood.

Petunia as you call her, (she doesn't deserve a pet name), still hasn't talked to you. She ignores you, and has stopped drawing.

Of course you doing notice, you've ignored her too. Her scathing comments hit hard but you can brush them off like they never happened when you insult her back.

Your parents don't notice. They're too focused on your life after school and what will become of your future. Such things as how they would leave you some money and other sensible things. What you don't know is that they haven't noticed that Petunia stopped drawing.

Petunia always drew, without art, Petunia was just Petunia.

you barely acknowledged each others existences. For Christmas she sends you sticker sheets Like she did when you were younger but over the course of the years they get less and less interesting and expensive.

Gone were the cool googley-eyes and faux fur, now all she got was a crudely wrapped cheap sheet of some random item. One year, Petunia even sent her a free sticker for her car.

You stopped collecting stickers.

Who would give you funny and odd stickers besides your sister? Instead you started up a book collection.

Petunia, from you, received less than appreciated presents too. For example, a pen that squirted water out the tip when one would try to use it. The pen would most defiantly ruin anything that it attempted to write on.

Petunia never went to art college as she had planned, instead, she stayed home and cleaned and gardened.

You didn't want to be trapped like her. She led such a miserable life. You were special, unique, why should you suffer the same dreary fate?

such a life was reserved for the average, not you.

* * *

Despite the woes of Petunia, there was James Potter. Sev had been ousted from the picture of your life since last July in sixth year.

He called you something you thought you'd never hear from him.

Mudblood.

A name, a derogatory phrase for someone "unworthy" of magic, like that you, who had been born with a gift, didn't deserve it.

A name that symbolized that she wasn't good enough in his eyes, and one that she would never forget.

No surprise when you started to ignore him too.

The whole concept was stupid- she was born with it, she didn't steal it. Who cared if your parents are muggle?. Sure, they were annoying, and overbearing, but you loved them and they were better than Sev's dysfunctional parents.

Not that you would ever reveal Sev's home situation. You had loyalty, unshakable moral, and somewhere you still cared for the boy who put you down.

Spending more time with the people he had once, when his opinion mattered to you, called lame.

He tried to apologize, even got one of your friends, whom he had called names (irony at its best) to fetch you for him when he threatened to sleep outside the Gryffindor commons.

You didn't accept.

Even if he didn't mean to call you so, he still called other by that name.

That was unarguable and unforgivable too, no one, not even the muggle-born kids on the more ditzy side, deserved to be called that.

People always asked why she was friends with, in Potter's words, 'the greasy-haired git'. Then, like any good friend, Lily would defend him and his actions.

Now you don't bother. You knew that he wouldn't do the same. He would probably even join in as they called you evil words, however you can't bring yourself to do the same.

* * *

You're older now; you have a son, deceased parents, an estranged sister and a loving husband.

You're part of a war.

You are, in some ways, crucial to the war.

You were _always_ special.

But so were Petunia and Sev. Petunia just never had a chance to be special. To be an artist, one needs constant praise and most likely, support. She needed the support that she never had. All kind words from your parents were directed to you.

You died young. So did Sev (relatively). One greatness is found, it burns bright and is snuffed out much too soon. You were too bright, too brilliant, too special, there was no way you could could lived past thirty.

Severus Snape was a survivalist, a snake. Agile and dexterous, he could easily assume a new skin. He had, in a way, cheated death until it had, cornered him against the wall.

Petunia grew up; she outlived her parents and lived all the way up to sixty, where she spent the last year of her life playing with her grandchildren and the children of your sons' children. She also was one of the first muggles on board with the merger between Muggles and magic.

She burned bright too, though, by the time when it really mattered, she was out of wax.

Your legacy lived on. He was kinder, softer toned, and just as ambitious.

You are proud, you weren't only special or gifted but also a mother, and a sister, and a friend, and a wife, and at last, a grandmother.

* * *

**Animal/zoo: Snake: Shrewdness and transformation. Write about Voldemort. Alt, write about change.**

**Camp Potter ii: archery week 2, Mandatory: write about the end of a friendship**

**Spell, curse and charm: Geminio- Spell. Duplicates an Object. Write about someone realising their mistakes. Alternatively write about the Maurader's Era.**

**Wand wood: Blackthorn: This very unusual wood has a reputation of being best suited to a warrior. This doesn't necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts. One finds blackthorn wands amongst Aurors as well as the prisoners of Azkaban. Write about a traitor, or a character that does not solely fight for one side. Alt: write about a member of the Order.**


End file.
